


Call Me Sam

by NaoNazo



Series: Designated Winchester At Birth [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: DFAB Sam Winchester, Gen, NB Sam Winchester, Trans Sam Winchester, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaoNazo/pseuds/NaoNazo
Summary: When Sam was nine, she had a friend named Sully who wanted her to run away, but she stayed. She stayed even though the girls at school laughed at her when she tried to talk like them, laughed at how messy her hair was and how loose and ratty her clothes were. She stayed even when she wanted to run, to slap them for calling her white trash and trailer park girl and dyke (she had to ask Dean what some of those meant).When Sam turned ten, she stopped staying and planned instead. If people kept noticing them because she wasn't good at being a girl, she'd just be a better boy. She'd been watching Dean and Dad act and lie her whole life, now it was her turn.





	1. Writing His Name

  
Sam's earliest memory is not of his mother. He remembers nothing about her, though he's tried. Looked at her picture whenever he could, peering over Dad's slumped shoulder when the man stopped cursing over his whiskey and finally gave in to sleep. He's pestered Dean about it, made his older brother retell the same stories until it's almost like being there-- The Time Mom Made Pie For Breakfast, The Day Mom Mixed Up the Laundry And Dad's Underpants Were All Pink, The Day Mom Threw The Football Into The Window. Sam's favorite, the only one he appears in, is The Day Mom Brought You Home.

  
He's asked Dean over and over, if Mom really cried out of happiness when he was born, if she really smiled so wide her cheeks went red, if she really said (as Dean swears she did) that she wanted Dean to meet the new member of their family, her "special little girl."

  
He's never asked Dean if he thinks Mom would have been just as happy to have another boy, if he thinks Dad wanted another son.

  
That's because his first memory made it very clear.  
\---------  
Age 4:

  
Samantha-- Call me Sam, she insisted, every time, my name is Sam-- really had to pee. The new daycare her dad had dropped her at was nice, lots of kids and even an old wooden playground with monkey bars and swings. Dean was already 9, so he got to go on a business trip with dad, but she had to stay at daycare until tomorrow. The lady in charge had told her daddy she'd be able to stay overnight, so it was kind of like a sleepover. She wasn't sure she'd be able to sleep without Dean there to tuck her in and say the story of the day Mom brought her home, her special little girl. She wanted Dad to kiss her goodnight like he normally did before his business trips, a firm kiss against her forehead that she'd be able to reach up and feel all night long.

  
One of the older kids in second grade had let Dean borrow a book last town they'd been in, one where mothers kissed their kids goodnight to protect them from bad dreams, and smoothed out their thoughts or something. Sam didn't know about smoothing out thoughts, but she had a lot of bad dreams, some where Dad died, or Dean died, or they both just went away on a trip and left her. She wanted Dad to kiss her forehead and keep those dreams away.

  
But before that, she wanted to go to the bathroom. The other kids were hogging the swings and she didn't know where the bathroom was. She didn't think she was supposed to ask questions of the lady. Dad said never to ask questions unless you really needed it. He hated questions.

  
"Screw it," she muttered. Dean's new favorite phrase. Between the wooden playground and the back of the baby nursery, there was a bit of bush almost as tall as she was. Daddy went to the bathroom in the woods sometimes, she'd heard him tell Dean how to do it.

  
She asked one of the kids in the sandbox if she could borrow his shovel, and he looked at her for a bit before nodding. She promised to bring it back.

  
When she got behind the bush, she was squirming a bit, but she still dug the hole. Dad had said it was important. She finished her business quickly, took a couple of leaves to dry off (another Dad tip) and covered the hole over. All done, she stood up and reached down to pull up her pants.

  
The lady's voice screeched.

  
Sam could never remember exactly what the lady said after she grabbed Sam's hand and yanked her away from the bush, but she remembered how the lady pulled her into the house, pushed her against the door and told her to Never Do That Again. Sam tried to explain that Daddy told Dean, but the lady kept talking. She talked for a long time, loud and angry, until Sam started to cry and the lady seemed pleased. "I just want you to understand, Samantha, that there are certain things boys can do that you can't."

  
The lady said the same thing to Dad the next day when he came to pick her up. Dad had white stuff wrapped around his hand, and Dean was walking funny, holding his shoulder. They both smiled when they saw Sam, straightening up taller. The lady asked Dad if he could please keep in mind that it was different, raising a little girl.

  
Dad just snorted. "The only thing I could teach Dean that I can't teach Sam is how to write his name in the snow."

  
Dean, next to him, did a gesture to help Sam know what that meant. The lady turned bright red and shouted at them about appropriate parenting and role models. She said something about how Sam needed some female figures in her life because her mother---

  
The lady shut up after that. Sam took Dean's hand and Dad took Sam's duffel, and the Winchesters walked away. When they got into the Impala, Sam piped up, "I can too write my name, Dad. I can write it with a stick. S-A-M."

  
Dad ruffled her hair. "Knew you could, kiddo." Dean grinned back at her from the front seat, and they took off down the road.

  
\---------------  
When Sam was six, she got in trouble for using the boy's room at school. She didn't get what was so wrong. In the motel rooms, she used the same bathroom as Dad and Dean, anyway. The first couple days, a couple boys stared at her when she walked in, but after she punched a few of them, they stopped.

  
Instead, her teacher called her dad to come in and talk. She said a lot of things about appropriate gender roles and how Sam might be confused because she had no female role models. Sam grinned and said, "The only thing Dad and Dean can do that I can't is pee on the snow."

  
This time, Dad didn't ruffle her hair. He took the brochure for single parents the teacher gave him, but chucked it in the back of the Impala without opening. Then he looked around the room, taking in the two queen beds, the mini fridge stuffed with leftovers and beer, the walls covered in pinned paper and maps. He sighed.

  
"Sammy," he said tiredly. "Do you know why that teacher wanted to talk to me?"

  
Sam nodded. "I used the bathroom wrong."

  
"Why did you do that, Tiger?" He wasn't quite looking at her.

  
"It's just a bathroom. I use the same one as you and Dean anyway." She knew Dad didn't like questions, but maybe... "Why was that wrong?"

  
Dad ran a hand over his face, pulling at his chin. "You're a girl, Tiger. Bathrooms in schools and truck stops... now that you're older, you have to go to the ones for girls."

  
"Why?" Dad's least favorite question.

  
"Because if you go into the wrong bathroom, people might try to..." he swallowed. "They might try and hurt you. It's dangerous if Dean and I aren't there."

  
"Don't worry, Dad. I punched all the boys before they could punch me," Sam was quick to assure him.

  
Dad laughed in that way he had, a single bark without a smile. He crouched down so his head was level with hers. "Good going, Tiger. But it could be dangerous if you do that somewhere where Dean and I can't back you up. Promise me you'll use the girl's restroom from now on."

  
Sam nodded. "Yes, sir."

  
Later that night, she heard Dean and Dad talking about it outside their motel room. When she snuck up to the door to listen better, careful to keep her toes behind the salt line, she heard Dad crying.

  
"--so much like Mary, always doing what she wants and asking forgiveness afterwards. All these teachers.....saying she needs a stable life, female role models... as if I can't raise my little girl right!"

  
Dean murmured something quietly in response, Sam only caught the words "school" and "bully."

  
Dad snapped back, "She knows how to defend herself!"

  
"Not from words." Dean's voice was heavy, final, the tone he used when no, she couldn't have just five more minutes before lights out. Sam thought the conversation might be over and crept quietly back into bed, settling on the left side, her spot. Dad always took the bed nearest the door, and Dean the side nearest the window, so at night she could wake herself up from a nightmare and hear their slow, heavy breaths wrapping around her to send her back to sleep.

  
Dean came back in a minute later, letting in a breeze that smelled slightly sour, like Dad was at the whiskey again. He brushed his teeth and settled into his side of the bed, pulling the blankets so they'd cover his side fully. Sam kicked her feet out in protest and laughed when Dean squeaked at how cold they were.

  
"You heard that outside?" Dean asked.

  
"Yeah."

  
"Sammy... you need to act more like a girl at school. We have to keep under the radar and we can't do that if your teachers always want to meet Dad."

  
Sam thought it over. "Okay. How do I act more like a girl?"

  
Dean kicked her. "How should I know?"

  
Sam hated when Dean said that. He said it like she should feel stupid for even thinking to ask the question. But Sam's favorite teacher that year had said that there were no stupid questions, and that it was smart to be curious and try to find answers.

  
She kicked Dean back hard. "How do I act more like a girl, jerkwad?" One of the kids at her last school had called people that and been sent to the office.

  
Dean sniggered. "Just keep acting like a little bitch, whine, cry, you'll be fine."

  
Dad had to come in and break apart the resulting fight. Sam had scrapes on her arms the next day from falling off the bed into the nightstand, but Dean had a ring of bruises on his arm from her teeth, so she thought it was about a tie.

  
At schools after that, Sammy remembered her promise to her dad. Years later, Sam remembered that as the first time she ever lied to him.  
\-------------

  
When Sam was 8 years old, Dad didn't come back for Christmas and Dean stole her toys from a little girl's house. She stared down at the Barbie, the magic wand. Now that she'd read Dad's journal, she didn't see the point in these things. She wasn't a kid anymore. Witches apparently cast spells using blood and animal bits, there was nothing a glittery wand could do to protect her. And she'd never played with dolls, unless you count Dean's green army men.

  
So she made a decision and gave Dean the amulet she got from Bobby for Dad. She could give him his real present-- a lunchbox to hold his cassette tapes-- for his birthday.

  
When she confronted Dean about the lies, how they both lied to her about what they do, how Dad hunts monsters and could get killed, she lay down on the bed away from Dean and cried. He shifted around like he might reach forward and hug her, but hung back. Feeling truly sorry for herself, she imagined that there could be someone there to hold her, to pull her into a big soft hug and not let go, if only her mother hadn't been killed in her nursery when she was a baby.

  
She tried to imagine what it'd like to be that girl whose parents gave her a Barbie and a magic wand, the girl down the street who didn't know anything about parents who die, who go out to kill things and might get killed someday. She tried to picture what little girl she would have been if her mom was alive, her mom's "special little girl." Maybe she would wear skirts instead of Dean's too-big jeans, maybe she'd have pink flat shoes instead of ratty grey sneakers, maybe she'd know how to braid her hair.

  
Sam wished she wanted more to be that little girl.

 

Later she remembers that night and thinks that might have been when she first knew-- if Dad could break his promises to her, then she didn't have to keep hers to him.

  
\------------

  
When Sam was nine, she had a friend named Sully who wanted her to run away, but she stayed. She stayed even though the girls at school laughed at her when she tried to talk like them, laughed at how messy her hair was and how loose and ratty her clothes were. She stayed even when she wanted to run, to slap them for calling her white trash and trailer park girl and dyke (she had to ask Dean what some of those meant).

  
When Sam turned ten, she stopped staying and started planning instead. If people kept noticing them because she wasn't good at being a girl, she'd just be a better boy. She'd been watching Dean and Dad act and lie her whole life, now it was her turn.

  
For all her plans, it didn't take much. She asked Dad to cut her hair like he cut Dean's. He started to ask a question, but stopped himself, ruffled her bangs. "Probably better for combat training if it's out of your eyes, huh, Sammy?"

  
"Yeah," she growled. Her voice still sounded too high and she was practicing keeping it lower. She was getting better.

  
"You got a sore throat, kiddo?" Maybe she needed more practice.

  
If this was one of those movies Dean complained about watching with his girlfriends (but later told her all about with relish), Sam would go out and get clothes and have a makeover. But she didn't really want to wear makeup (that would defeat the purpose and anyway she didn't know how) so she'd just stick with Dean's old clothes, baggy shirts with flannel over rolled-up jeans.

  
The next part was trickier.

  
When they were walking to school one day, she asked Dean, "Can you tell your friends I'm your little brother?" Dean had lots of friends at this school, or so she thought. She'd seen him coming out of broom closets with some of them.

  
Dean didn't blink. "They already think you are. You wear all my clothes anyway."

  
"But can you call me your little brother?" Sam persisted.

  
"Why?"

  
Because I'm no good at being a girl. I don't know what people expect of me. I don't like the way they look at me. I don't like being called names when they think I'm not listening. Because girls on their own can be nice but in groups they whisper and giggle and ignore me. Boys I can punch or talk to or ignore, but girls make walls out of words and I can't get through.

  
"No reason. I just want to know what it's like."

  
One of the boys at that school took a special interest in messing with her, calling her Losechester. That's the stupidest insult she'd ever heard, but Dad didn't want her to fight in school. Dean could, but when she did it the teachers started asking questions about her home life. Her motel life. She couldn't wait to leave this place.

  
But then she made a friend, Barry. He didn't blink when she told him to call her Sam, never Samantha, not even when she said that the teacher had the wrong papers and she's really a boy. She thought she might be a boy. Her friend didn't blink, he grinned and said quietly not to tell but his older sister used to be a brother and does she want him to call her "him"?

  
It was the first time Sam had heard that you could choose that, you could choose whether people call you her or him, not just Sam or Samantha. She-- "he," he told his friend, "call me 'he,'"-- wanted to know more.

  
His friend brought a couple of the zines his older sister gave him to explain, asked Sam to give them back after school the day after. Sam didn't do his homework until late that night, reading and reading about the gender binary and gender spectrum, about sexual versus gender orientation and about transitioning and hormones. He went to the bathroom and took off his shirts, looking down at the flat plane of his chest where tits might grow someday. He wished it could stay flat forever, the way his body seemed inclined to stay small forever. Some of the other-- some of the girls in his classes had started wearing bras under their shirts, he saw the way boys looked at them and tried to snap at the straps. He didn't think he looked at girls the way other boys looked at them, but he didn't look at them the way other girls looked, either. He wasn't like Dean, he didn't talk about their bodies or the way they smelled or how much they'd let him kiss them.

  
He didn't want to be them. He couldn't even imagine being them. But he did want them to smile at him, maybe let him try wearing their Lipgloss and nail varnish, just to see if he could. They never had extra money, so it wasn't like he could ask Dad to buy something useless like a nail polish he might not even like.

  
He told this to Barry the next day, along with all his questions about how he felt like he wasn't a girl, but he wasn't entirely sure he's a boy either, that he didn't want his body to grow into something soft and curvy, that he wanted his arms to be thick and strong like his Dad's and he wanted his hands to be quick and callused like Dean's but maybe he also wanted his hair to be long and curly like his mom's and he wanted to learn how to do a braid.

  
His friend invited him over to dinner, saying "My sister is taking a gap year, she'd be happy to talk to you."

  
His friend's older sister was the coolest person he'd ever met, except for Dean. When she talked, her voice was warm and calm, and she looked straight into his eyes and LISTENED. Sam wished Dean would date her instead of the girls in school, because then maybe (Sully might be gone, but he still got lost in imagination sometimes) they could fall in love and Dad might let them stay until they got married, and he could have an older sister and a brother his own age. He wished he could ask her every single question he had, even the ones about what he should do when it was late at night and his dad hadn't come home and he started getting very very sure that his dad was dead and Dean was dead and he was all alone and he started not being able to breathe and his heart started pounding so hard he got dizzy and his teeth tingled and he started not being able to see.

  
The question slipped out anyway and his friend's sister-- Call me Ericka, she said-- reached out with her strong arms, thick like Dean's are, and asked if she could give him a hug, asked him like it was a privilege she wanted to earn, like it was something he could give her as a gift. He fell forward into her shoulder, which smelled clean like flowery shampoo and laundry detergent, and his friend left the room, and he maybe cried for a bit. This was what Dean called a Chick Flick moment and Sam was torn between embarrassment, shame, and helpless gratitude. He wished-- well, he didn't wish Ericka were his sister instead of Dean, but he wished she were his family.

  
While they stayed at that town, Sam tried to go over to Barry's house as much as possible. He didn't always talk to Ericka-- he played with his friend, and sometimes she was there, sometimes she wasn't-- but he always got to take a book or what Ericka called a "zine" home with him, or sometimes watch a movie about people like him, people like her. Her parents smiled at him and call him "son," even, and he'd never felt so much like smiling and crying at the same time. He wanted Dad to try calling him "son."

  
But he didn't want Dad to drink and cry and think he wasn't like his mom, that he wasn't Mom's "special little girl." He couldn't put that on his dad.

  
Finally, Dad finished all the hunts in the surrounding towns, and Sam ran to his friend's house as soon as he heard, books in hand, because he didn't want to steal them, he didn't want to leave without saying goodbye.

  
His friend hugged him and his parents gave him a firm handshake and a cookie and a card with their number on it, and a promise that they'd pick up if he ever needed someone to talk to. Ericka asked for a hug, the way she always asked before touching anyone, and she held him long and hard, and he maybe cried a little into her warm, clean-smelling shoulder. He thought Ericka might be the first girl he ever loved. He told her that before he went, even though he thought he might die of embarrassment, because he thought she might like to hear it, to hear someone call her a girl they love, like he loved it when her parents called him "son."

  
She didn't cry but her eyes got really shiny and she told him to wait while she ran up to her room, and she came back with one of his favorite books, The Outsiders. She told him to take it with him and to remember them. She'd written "Stay gold, Ponyboy!", and signed with her name and a heart "because she couldn't draw a hug."

  
Underneath that she'd written her email and phone number with "Stay in touch!" underlined three times and another heart. Sam couldn't stop smiling all the way home, even though he hated this, he hated leaving, he hated never being in just one place. Dean seemed happy to go, almost hyper with how fast he packed, how he threw his clothes into his bag. And then he snapped that no matter what, Dean never wanted to talk about that school or that town or his friends there again.

  
Sam doesn't ask Dean to call him his little brother for a long time after.


	2. Junior High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do like Dean did, swagger into a new school like he didn't give a shit about his ripped and ragged clothes and rented textbooks and the cheap notebooks that he'd filled with lessons from the last four schools. He tried to just... keep his head down and make sure the knife and holy water in his bag were both accessible AND secure enough not to clank together or fall out accidentally. The last school that had found him with a knife had nearly expelled him right then and there. So much for fitting in.

Dean had always called Sam a little bitch, but he started to really mean it when Sam reached seventh grade. Sam couldn't really blame him for that. It's just, junior high was hell. It was, it was awful, he hated nearly every school they went to, and they hit more than eight in two years.

 

 

No one really gave a shit about him in grade school-- teachers liked him, he played sports or made friends with the kids he sat next to if they were friendly, girls would sometimes tease him or whisper about him but mostly left him alone. At the time, he thought he was lonely, trying to find a place to fit in before they were forced to uproot and move somewhere new.

 

 

The school they were in right now, though, he wished he could fly under the radar enough to be just lonely. They were stuck in Minnesota as summer gave its last gasp, and he could barely stand to wear his customary over-shirt. His sports bras sweltered under his shirts, and he had to wash them in the sink every week because Dad and Dean didn't do laundry unless they'd worn every single pair of boxers they owned. Their motel room constantly stank like sweat and gun powder, so heavy on Sam's tongue he couldn't swallow.

 

 

So he couldn't slip under the radar like he used to, not when all the other students were wearing name brands and new sneakers. He wasn't just another new student, he was the new student who dressed weird and sweated a lot and spent all his free time in the air-conditioned library.

 

 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do like Dean did, swagger into a new school like he didn't give a shit about his ripped and ragged clothes and rented textbooks and the cheap notebooks that he'd filled with lessons from the last four schools. He tried to just... keep his head down and make sure the knife and holy water in his bag were both accessible AND secure enough not to clank together or fall out accidentally. The last school that had found him with a knife had nearly expelled him right then and there. So much for fitting in.

 

 

He'd made friends in his past schools, girls who liked to read in the same section of the library, boys who didn't mind sharing their textbooks in class. Well, he'd made acquaintances, anyway. He hadn't found anyone like Ericka and her family since, no one he felt comfortable coming out to or even mentioning how he identified. Dean wasn't even in this school with him, since the town had a junior high for sixth and seventh grade and Dean was playing hooky through 11th. So there was no one to threaten to kick the asses of the boys who kicked his chair in class and called him Freak, no one to flatter girls into hanging out with the tag-along little "sister." Simply put, he barely knew anyone he could even nod to in the halls, he was surrounded by (in large part) uncreatively petty jackasses every day, and when they picked on him, he couldn't fight back or go to a teacher because of Dad's rules about not making waves.

 

 

Like that wasn't enough, he felt like he was being constantly pricked by needles, hemmed in too tightly at the seams with dental-floss stitches, whenever Dean called him "sis" or Dad introduced him as "my daughter, Samantha." He was so damn tired of trying to get people to call him by his name.

 

 

As a result, he kept snapping at Dean for mussing his hair, trying to distract him from his books, teasing him about boys. He hated how angry he was, all the time, like something was boiling in the pit of his stomach and he had to spit it out or explode. He hadn't started snapping at Dad yet, but he'd bitten his lips so often they had actually split, and he'd had to explain away the blood to an increasingly protective older brother. Who, once he'd finally managed to explain, had rolled his eyes and said, "What kind of idiot bites through her own lip?" At which point Sam had tackled him. So. Obviously things were going GREAT.

 

 

He tried to go to the library and email Ericka little check-in messages whenever he could, because she would always read them and respond with a short message of support or just text him a row of hearts to get him through the day. She told him constantly, you're not alone, I'm here for you. He couldn't tell her how much that meant to him-- to know that there was someone besides Dad's hunting partners, Uncle Bobby, and Pastor Jim who would give a shit if he weren't here. Someone outside his claustrophobic family who not only knew who he was, but even thought he wasn't weird or broken.

 

 

Dean found him smiling at his phone one day after school and snatched it away, smirking. "Got a boyfriend, Sammy? Do I have to give him the shovel talk?"

 

 

Sam snatched it back so fast he accidentally scratched his brother's hand. "None of your business, assface," he muttered.

 

 

Dean grinned, scenting a weak spot like a shark smelling chum. "So many less than three's! Damn, Sammy, whoever Eric is, he must reeeeeeally wuv you. Just tell me you'll use protection when the time comes, and don't believe him if he says it won't fit."

 

 

Sam could feel his face heating up. He restrained himself, with effort, from punching his brother in the mouth. "Jesus, Dean, could you maybe shut the hell up? It's Ericka, she's my friend."

 

 

Dean's eyebrows raised, before he snickered and started to waggle them. "She's sending you all those hearts? Didn't realize you swung that way, little sis."

 

 

He was obviously joking, using the tone of voice he'd perfected to make Sam go crazy and try to beat him into the floor. He was probably expecting Sam to make a disgusted face and tell him he was a sexist pig who just thought lesbians were hot conceptually.

 

 

Sam couldn't move.

 

 

Dean leaned forward, stared at his face, one hand running through his hair like he was checking the gel was still spiked enough. Sam wondered if maybe he just wanted to ground himself with a familiar sensation. "Jesus, Sammy, do you really--"

 

 

"Please shut up, Dean," Sam begged. He didn't know what his face was doing, but whatever it was made Dean look increasingly worried.

 

 

"Does Dad know?"

 

 

Sam felt the blood drain from his head so fast he got dizzy. "No, no, Dean, it's nothing, don't tell him, please don't tell him, I promise it's nothing, okay, just please--"

 

 

Dean pulled him into a hug, one of those hard squeezes around his ribs and back that always made him feel small and safe. "Okay, Sammy, whatever you say, he doesn't have to know, it's okay, I won't tell him."

 

 

Sam could feel himself hyperventilating and he hated being this weak, he hated the way his body betrayed him time and time again and he was babbling now because he can't breathe, he can't breathe, DEAN, he can't BREATHE--

 

 

Dean put one hand on his back and one at the base of his neck, gripping hard like he could squeeze out the tension that was turning Sam's muscles into jangling electrical cables, and he rubbed slow circles on Sam's back like he did whenever Sam pulled a muscle during wrestling practice. "Shhh, shhhhh, just breathe, Sammy," his older brother whispered, pulling Sam's head so it rested under Dean's chin. He clenched his fists in Dean's jacket and focused on forcing air in through his nose, out through his mouth, like that website Ericka sent him had said about self-calming techniques.

 

 

After a couple minutes, he felt less like the floor under his feet would suck him in, so he unclenched his aching fingers and pulled away. Dean looked... He hadn't seen that look on his older brother's face since Sam had been hospitalized for pneumonia when he was 6, when Dean hovered by his bed waiting to bring him cups of water and soup, and stared fixedly at Sam whenever he went to sleep.

 

 

"Dean..." Sam didn't know what else he could say. He looked up at his brother through eyes that were growing hot and blurry. Every breath he took felt heavy, excruciatingly slow.

 

 

"Jesus, Sammy," Dean sighed. "Was that a panic attack? How long have you had those?"

 

 

Sam shrugged. Pretty much as long as he could remember.

 

 

"Have you... do you want to talk about it?"

 

 

Sam could barely muster up enough energy to raise an eyebrow at his brother. Winchesters didn't just talk about feelings. They got drunk and blurted them out or bottled them up forever. Sam didn't want to think about how emotionally dysfunctional his family was. It would just make him want to cry more.

 

 

He gulped. "I... I have homework."

 

 

Dean opened his mouth, closed it, nodded. He ran a hand over his hair like he was looking for something to hold on to. Sam nodded back at him and turned around, suddenly needing to hole up somewhere alone. He wanted to make a cave out of his blankets and sleep for a week. He wanted Ericka to call him and let him listen while she read him the texts in her sociology class. He kind of just wanted to not exist for a while, to ask the world to slow up a bit so he can get off.

 

 

Dean's voice stopped him at the doorway.

 

 

"Sammy, you don't gotta tell me but just... I wouldn't judge you, not for this. And neither would Dad. You gotta know that."

 

 

Sam nodded, not looking back. He did know that. Hell, he knew Dean looked at boys almost as much as he looked at girls, and Dad had never said boo-- if he'd even noticed. But, he mused as he slipped onto his bed and pulled the covers over his head, he also knew that just because they wouldn't judge him "for this," it didn't mean they would understand who he really was. He came from a family of hunters. There was no room in that dynamic for a freak like him.

 

 

\-------------------

The next day, Dean was excruciatingly solicitous, treating Sam like a single harsh word would shatter him. He didn't chuck a pillow at Sam's head as a wake-up call, or threaten to use all the milk in his cereal before Sam could fix his second mug of coffee. He didn't knock into Sam's shoulder on the way out to the car, kept his music low in the car, and kept glancing over like he thought Sam might disappear or start crying any second.

 

 

Sam bore through this stoically, occasionally rolling his eyes. It was just like Dean to somehow manage to be just as irritating as normal when he was obviously making an effort to be sensitive.

 

 

Sam suppressed a snicker at the thought of Dean being referred to as "sensitive" in any capacity. This from the guy who thought it was romantic to say "I know" if a girl said "I like you."

 

 

"Something funny, bi-- Sammy?" Dean asked, glancing over.

 

 

Sam looked down at his lap, picked at a rough patch in the leather seat that he'd been picking at since he was 10.

 

 

"You know, you don't have to treat me different," he said softly. "It's not like I'm any different. I'm still your little" God, he couldn't say sister, he just couldn't say that like it was okay, "irritating sibling. You suddenly changing your act is... kinda unsettling?" And a little insulting, although he wouldn't say that out loud.

 

 

"Sammy, I just--"

 

 

"--since it's obviously physically painful for you not to be a jerk," Sam interjected, lips curling into a smirk. Dean turned slightly in his seat to check his expression, brow furrowed like he wasn't sure if he'd been insulted or pardoned.

 

 

Sam's smirk grew into a grin as Dean reached across to punch him in the shoulder.

 

 

"Bitch. You realize you just gave me full permission to tease you about girls now?" Dean asked conversationally.

 

 

Sam shrugged. "Not like I meet that many who would be interested anyway. We keep going through the Bible belt."

 

 

Dean pursed his lips. "You just need to find the right crowd to hang out in. Go to some parties, play spin the bottle... people start experimenting in high school. You could find someone... curious," he finished with a wink. Sam just rolled his eyes.

 

 

"Like Dad'll let me go to parties. Besides, I'd really rather just go to the library. Much quieter, less chance people will vomit on you."

 

 

Dean shrugged a shoulder, like 'eh, you have a point.' "Well, if you ever do decide to leave your nerd hole and try having some fun, let me know. I'm sure I could steer some girls your way." At this point, his brother had obviously run out of tolerance for their chick flick moment, as he quickly backtracked into familiar asshole territory. "Someone's gotta have a fetish for girls who look like prepubescent boys."

 

 

"Great. Thanks for that," Sam answered in a monotone, glaring out the window. For a minute there, they'd actually been having a conversation. Why were all the men in his family allergic to emotions?

 

 

As if to reinforce Sam's unspoken irritation, Dean reached over without looking and dug his knuckles into Sam's scalp, mussing his hair in a quick noogie. "Have fun at school, Sammy!" He said, snickering, as they pulled into the school parking lot. Sam, furiously finger-combing his hair back into order, restrained himself to a single finger salute as he left the car, leaning into the backseat to grab his backpack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of an interim chapter, because I have a couple stories planned for Sam between junior high and college. Expect Amy Pond to make an appearance!
> 
> As always, comments and suggestions are very welcome. Hope you like it!


	3. Kindred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Across the aisle, he could see another library-goer who looked about as happy about being here as he did.
> 
> It took him about twenty seconds to look back up and realize that whoever that dark-haired girl was, he'd noticed her peripherally for the last two hours and she'd barely moved. Still, he wasn't sure why he'd thought she was unhappy, on second glance she just looked bored, gazing down at a stack of what looked like those popular science magazines and fiddling one-handed with a silver necklace of some kind.
> 
> Then he looked a little closer and saw the way her foot was hooked tight around the leg of her chair, the way she clutched the magazine so hard her knuckles stood out stark and white. He knew that posture, that method of holding your body still and taut and relaxing all emotion away from your face. Hell, he lived that expression, in schools and long car rides listening to hours of hair metal he didn't like, holding textbooks so hard his hands cramped and bent the fraying cardboard spines, leaving fingerprint smears on the covers he'd painstakingly cut and taped from paper bags. He knew the helpless, choking rage it took to wind yourself that tight.

 

 

Sam's alarm didn't go off. He probably should have seen that coming, Dean had knocked the radio/alarm clock/boxy black piece of shit off of the bedside table when they were tussling over the last bit of pie the night before. He didn't even particularly LIKE pie, but something in him was angry and hungry and craving sweet things, hurting for something good so hard his throat ached with it. The food they normally got to bring home did nothing but make his stomach roil with grease and too much salt.

 

So he'd tackled Dean away from that sad little paper plate with its half a slice of cold pie, and Dean had hit at his ribs with an elbow and flipped them over (and into the bedside table but who was counting) and they'd grabbed at each other's shirts, trying to get a decent wrestling hold, and Dean had smirked suddenly and dug his fingers into Sam's shoulder to tickle him right at his neck so he couldn't help but curl up with laughter, and Dean had shoved him down onto his stomach and SAT on him. And then he ate the pie.

 

But the radio clock must have been busted from the fall, because even after Dad's gruff warning that he and Dean would be leaving early morning, he'd just rolled over when they left and fallen back asleep and the alarm hadn't gone off and he'd missed the bus.

 

His current school was two and a half miles away and the bus wouldn't come again for another hour and the biology test he'd been studying for (post-training and pre-pie fight) was during first period.

 

So of course Dean called while he was running and barely half a mile away from school, rented textbooks digging a groove into his spine, and the asshole flat-out ordered him to head to the library and research any kind of monster that ate brains in general and pituitary glands specifically.

 

They hadn't gotten to brains yet in his biology class. He'd asked if he could wait two hours, finish his fucking test for this fucking AP class he'd been studying for all week. Three guesses how well THAT turned out.

 

It was still hot and Minnesota muggy in the entry way when he trudged in, but that could have been the sweat soaking through his undershirt. The librarian gave him a funny look when he came to the desk to ask for an area map. "Independent study project," he'd explained with a grimace, ducking his head to swipe bangs off his forehead. His stomach gurgled, but hopefully not loud enough that she'd hear it over the rustle of looking through the wall of pamphlets.

 

Three hours later he'd sucked down two Red-eyes and gone through half of the library's books on mythology and found bupkis. Well, lots of things about Egypt and the way embalmers discarded the brain during mummification, but he'd known that already. Finally, in a fit of... desperation? frustration?... he'd stopped looking for brain-eating monsters and looked for ones that took human souls or minds. A lot of old lore didn't refer to brains so much as the idea of consciousness, and that tended to translate funny down the years and across languages. He struck gold in a book of Japanese legends about foxes that turned into wives and (in an unsubstantiated story he'd had to look up and then call Bobby about) addled or took their husbands' minds. He'd been full up of something like pride when he called for verification. At which point Bobby huffed and grumbled and said, "Kid," in that long drawly way he had, like "keeeee-id," which was a softer way of saying "you moron."

 

"Kid, I told yer dad yesterday it had to be a kitsune or a kumiho. The killing method is different, though, so you need to have him describe the crime scene. Kitsunes tend to take the whole brain if they have the time, kumihos are likely to be quicker, messier and less organized."

 

Sam had looked at the clock, at those three hours he could have been taking his test and eating lunch with that boy in his English class who liked to talk about dragons, dragons and more dragons whenever he had a spare moment. Jimmy. He mostly ate with Jimmy because the other kids knew to steer clear of him after Sam had quietly but firmly told them to leave... but he thought they still needed some encouragement to keep from laughing at Jimmy when Sam wasn't there to glare at them. He looked at the clock and at his long-empty cup of coffee and he pushed a hand through his sweat-salty hair and he got up and got some more fucking books because this was his life apparently.

 

The library was mostly empty at this time of day, except for some moms bringing their kids in for a reading hour at eleven. No one his age came through for a while, but when he was still digging his way through lore that contradicted itself and the websites he found, three-thirty passed and the post-school flood began. He staked out a table by the fantasy shelves and defended it by being a generally awkward and visibly somewhat unwashed kid with weird books layered three inches deep over the whole surface area.

 

At five, he got up to grab another cup of coffee, ignoring with long practice the gallop of his heart against his sports bra and the beginning of an intermittent twitch in his left hand. When that twitch morphed into spastic tapping, he would cut himself off. Probably. Unless another body turned up. Dean had managed to fax him copies of the police reports and photos taken of the bodies, and he'd lifted the edge of the papers with careful delicacy and used his one precious magnifying glass to scrutinize the edges of the wounds in their eggshell skulls, the insides scooped clean like a watermelon at a picnic, gleaming a wet dull red. Kitsune, then.

 

At five-thirty, he pulled himself back from the printouts he'd made of a translated (and so far, promising) Japanese legend to stretch the ache out of his back and neck. Across the aisle, he could see another library-goer who looked about as happy about being here as he did.

 

It took him about twenty seconds to look back up and realize that whoever that dark-haired girl was, he'd noticed her peripherally for the last two hours and she'd barely moved. Still, he wasn't sure why he'd thought she was unhappy, on second glance she just looked bored, gazing down at a stack of what looked like those popular science magazines and fiddling one-handed with a silver necklace of some kind.

 

Then he looked a little closer and saw the way her foot was hooked tight around the leg of her chair, the way she clutched the magazine so hard her knuckles stood out stark and white. He knew that posture, that method of holding your body still and taut and relaxing all emotion away from your face. Hell, he lived that expression, in schools and long car rides listening to hours of hair metal he didn't like, holding textbooks so hard his hands cramped and bent the fraying cardboard spines, leaving fingerprint smears on the covers he'd painstakingly cut and taped from paper bags. He knew the helpless, choking rage it took to wind yourself that tight.

 

For a timeless instant, he took in the way her fingers tangled and untangled the chain of that necklace, the way her eyes skipped back and forth across the pages almost frantically, the way her hair fell over her shoulder until she twitched it away.

 

Then he forced his eyes back to his pages of legend, skimming to the end where the hero-- finally!-- traced the kitsune back to her lair and struck at her heart with his folded steel sword. He glanced back up at the girl in time to catch her gazing in his direction, deep brown eyes widening as she met his and quickly looked away.

 

Sam got out of his chair and called Dean. He'd found out how to kill a kitsune, anyway.

 

"You stab it in the heart. Stab it. The heart. I said, you stab it in the heart!"

 

On second thought, he could have left the library before having this conversation. The librarian at the information desk (the one who had seen the faxes of police reports and pages of websites as they piled up) was giving him the stink-eye. He grimaced apologetically and turned away.

 

"Okay. Are you guys cool? Can I have a normal life for five minutes now?....Oh, Dean. Quick question." He lowered his voice, cupped his hand around the mouthpiece. "How do you talk to girls?"

 

His brother coughed like something had gone down the wrong pipe. "A-- a BOY, Sammy? Good on you!" So Dad was still in the room, then, good to know. "You could, uh, walk up to... him and say his... hair looks...good?" He'd never heard Dean's voice go that high and uncertain before. It was enlightening, if less than helpful. Either his brother was less smooth than he appeared, or he just had trouble switching gears into coaching someone he thought was a lesbian into flirting.

 

Sam very much did not understand flirting. One of the girls in his last school had tried to explain it as "talking about how someone looks" and "making it clear that you want to kiss someone." His problem, he suspected, was that he never particularly noticed how people looked and rarely thought about kissing. Physical affection seemed at best uncomfortable and at worst potentially hazardous. Maybe it was because his brother's idea of a comforting touch was to grab him in a headlock for a noogie. The less said about his dad's once in a blue moon, occasionally patronizing pats to the shoulder, the better.

 

Anyway. He didn't want to talk to the girl just to flirt or try to kiss her. It was just... she looked interesting. Like a book with the cover worn illegible, like the three-quarter mystery paperbacks he picked up at yard sales and book drives and flipped ahead to read through the end.

 

He closed his books, gathered up his guts (which seemed to be sinking to his knees), and walked over to her table.

 

"Um.." he cleared his throat, awkwardly. She was looking at him, one eyebrow lifted.

 

"Um... I just wanted to, you know, say hi and –"

 

"No. Go away." She snapped, eyes hard. She softened a bit when his face fell, unbending enough to explain. "It's just, I'm not supposed to talk to boys."

 

He closed his mouth, nodded and turned away. On the one hand, she shot him down. Flat.

 

But on the other, she actually saw him. He passed. It shouldn't have felt like such a big thing, maybe, he could still pass in a lot of places if teachers or his fucking dad don't take it upon themselves to "correct" the speaker.

 

She said she couldn't talk to BOYS. If he went back, said he wasn't... he could still talk to her. Maybe get her name.

 

He almost turned back. That was how curious he was. It felt like he'd really miss out if he didn't meet this girl, somehow.

 

But still... that could have just been a brush-off because she didn't want to talk to ANYONE. And then he'd be the persistent weird GIRL bugging her in the middle of a library.

 

Ah, screw it. Time to cut his losses and head home. He obviously wasn't going to get any more work done here anyway. While he gathered the books to place in the return bin and stacked loose webpages for Dad to copy over to his journal, two boys he vaguely recognized from school accosted the girl at her table. They followed her as she left, and without really thinking about it, he crammed the papers into his backpack and followed.

 

He was in time to see the taller boy dogging her steps shove the girl into a tree and lean in. He dropped his backpack and called them out, settling his feet for a fight. The boys were taller than him, their sneering faces set in an expression he'd seen at every school he'd ever gone to. Narrowed eyes, smug curling lips, lowered eyebrows. He called that the "about to get punched" face.

 

When the assholes both started towards him, he blocked the first hit automatically, slamming his fist into the other boy's face to get him out of the way. He aimed for the fleshy part of the cheek to keep his knuckles from bruising too hard. The second boy came in with a left hook and he moved with the hit as it snapped his head back. He didn't let it knock him off-balance, following through with a jab and restraining himself from going for an elbow to the throat. Dad had had a talk with him and Dean about appropriate (legally defensible) maneuvers for fights against humans. Throat attacks were too hard to gauge, too easy to cause severe damage. These assholes were small-fry, anyway. He started toward them, hands raised to jaw-level. And they turned tail and ran.

 

His blood was singing in his veins, the way it did when he managed to sweep Dean's legs out from under him and Dad gave him that rare nod of approval. The one he always imagined would come with a "well done, son."

 

The girl pushed herself away from the tree and picked up her backpack, eyes locked on him. He stepped back, ran a hand through his hair.

 

"Sorry, I just... thought you might want a bit of help with them?" He winced slightly as his arm brushed the forming bruise next to his eye. "Not that you couldn't. I mean. I just... um. Sorry." He was babbling like an idiot now. "I can... go? If you want me to?" She stepped a little closer, eyes beginning to crinkle into a smile.

 

"Or," she said pointedly, "you could walk me home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late, I've been editing and rewriting and their interactions didn't really seem right for a while. Anyhoo, the next installation will be Sam and his new friend at her house, talking over life and eventually meeting her mom. Look forward to it!
> 
> Many thanks to all y'all who've been reading and leaving comments, it warms my heart right down to the cockles.


	4. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eimi smiled like someone hijacked her brain, aimed a gun at her facial controls center and ordered her to lift the corners of her mouth. “She has a temper.” Taking the dishcloth from his hand— he forgot he was holding that, whoops— she crouched next to him and mopped up the spill roughly, hands clenched. “It’s... no big deal.”
> 
>  
> 
> It sounded kind of like a big deal. “My dad has a temper, too.” Every November, empty whiskey bottles on motel tables, Dean’s eyes dull as he listened to Dad snarling about fires and cribs and his perfect Mary bleeding out on the ceiling. The stomp of his boots and the slam of the door when he came back from a dead-end hunt, his look of impatient disgust whenever Sam wanted to stay at a school, meet a friend for a project, participate in a school play. Sam shook his head. “You don’t want to see him when he’s drinking.”
> 
>  
> 
> Eimi loosed one of her hands, inched it toward his wet sleeve slowly, not quite reaching. “My mom...Sometimes I think she’s not a good person. Sometimes I think I’m not a very good person.”
> 
>  
> 
> “You are.”

Somewhere between leaving the library and reaching her house, Eimi had reached back to take his hand. It cost Sam significant effort to act like he held hands with lovely angry girls like this all the time, no problem. He was hooked on the sound of her voice, the way it grew husky and delighted when she described her favorite X-Men characters, while he nodded where relevant, and wished desperately he could think of something interesting to say.

As they strode over puddles that soaked immediately through the thin soles of Sam's shoes, Eimi brushed slightly closer, bumping his shoulder gently when she snickered.

“Your shoes are squelching, that’s gotta suck,” she remarked. Her fingers were warm against the stinging ache around his knuckles—those would swell into bruises in another half hour, the way they were throbbing.

“Uh...yeah, I’ll stick them on the radiator later. When it rains the whole room starts to smell like ass— um.FEET. For uh, days. Uh, sorry, that wasn’t...” He trailed off, sure she was disgusted. Why did he always do this? Did he HAVE to make her associate him with the smell of feet?

She laughed, a surprised bark that devolved into chuckles, and just said “Not long until we reach my place, and I can at least give you a different pair of socks. After we do something about that black eye of yours.” He nodded and asked her more about why she liked Kitty Pryde more than Wolverine (BeCAUSE, Sam, she can go through anything and survive, how cool is that? No one can lay a hand on her. Plus she can save people from being trapped by earthquakes and things, and all Wolverine does is slash people and get hurt a lot).

Sam hung onto her words like they were his last piece of licorice two Halloween’s ago, the one he saved for three months and five hunts, and he’d been so hungry he’d eaten it bit by bit, dissolving it steadily from a red wand to a trace of pink on his tongue and a lingering, heavy sweet scent. He knew how to hoard things until the precise moment they were needed. Words especially.

As they walked, he surreptitiously wiped his free hand against his jeans, hoping his palm wasn't sweating too much into hers. Hoping, now that he thought of it, that she hadn't taken his hand only because she thought he was just too short to cross the street alone.

Dean STILL did that sometimes, and no amount of punching, shouting or swearing could make him stop.

Eimi led them into a maze of houses that looked five times bigger than any place he’d ever squatted at. They walked past rows of carefully maintained lawns, cookie cutter houses all frosted white. His eyes darted over the tiny sparks of color left on those generic frames— welcoming signs, discarded children’s toys, anything to convince him that humans live here, not cookie-cutter shapeshifters or something. Maybe they bled sprinkles. Dean’d be all over that.

They paused in front of another identical house, this one absolutely devoid of any color, and absent any signs of life. Eimi pulled her necklace off, freeing a silver heart on a chain that also held a generic house key. “I know, I know,” she said, leaning over the handle. “It makes me look like a total latchkey kid, huh. Mom doesn’t like to leave a key anywhere outside the house, so...” Sam shrugged.

“I always keep mine in my backpack.” Well, that’s where he kept his lockpicks, which amounted to the same thing. “Necklace is smart, but not really my style.”

She smirked and unlatched the door, pausing briefly before saying, “Mind if I take a second to clean up? I think my mom might have left some stuff out.”

“Oh no, I’m used to a mess, it doesn’t bother me.” Sam could see the muscles in her cheeks briefly tighten, maybe he’d been rude? He truly doubted that the amount of clutter a normal teen girl and her mother created could in any way compare with the funk of three active hunters whose idea of cleanliness was shoving sweaty, smoke-and-blood-scented clothes in a single duffel for weeks until it was laundry time.

"I can wait out here, though," he offered uncertainly. Eimi smiled at him and slipped inside, shutting the door.

"Just a minute," she called. Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the side of the porch, staring down at the ground for lack of anything to do. There was a threadbare welcome mat with the remnants of a "W" and an "M" were barely visible. Despite how worn it looked, he somehow doubted Eimi and her mom got many visitors.

The door opened without warning and Sam started, gripping the handle of his pocket knife reflexively. Eimi smirked at him, then swept an arm to the inside of the house in welcome. Sam gulped slightly, slid his hands out of his pockets and followed her in, toeing his damp shoes off at the threshold. She led him to another room with a coffee table and couch and nudged him gently into sitting while she walked off to get some ice.

Slinging his backpack down to the floor, Sam scanned the bare walls, the curtains that were actually pinned closed, the complete lack of family photos or art beyond the generic "came with the lease" kind of landscape paintings he saw in every halfway decent motel they stayed at. The only sign that actual people lived here was the collection of CDs stacked next to a sound system Dean would give his left arm for (well, assuming he could get the whole of his hair rock collection on CD instead of cassette).

Eimi came back in carrying an alcohol wipe and a cold can of soda. "For your eye," she said, handing both to him over his shoulder. "Mind if I put on some music?"

Honestly, having grown up trapped in a cramped backseat with avid rock fans for hours on end, Sam was not a huge fan of listening to music when he didn’t have to. Still... he shrugged. “As long as it’s not, like, hair metal.”

“I’ve been listening to Ani Difranco mainly, you heard of her?” Sam shrugged again. “In that case, now’s a good time. Her album’s called Not A Pretty Girl.”

“Huh,” Sam said, half-listening to the building, lively guitar, half- to the sound of Eimi rustling around in the kitchen. He opened the wipe and swiped it against his cheek where he could feel the skin had split. Maybe one of the boys had been wearing a ring or something. He hoped the bruise would go down a bit before Dean got back or he’d get no end of nagging about the point being to block his face, not with his face.

Eimi reentered the room with a bag full of ice cubes and a dishcloth. Sam stared at it for a second. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had been legitimately worried about such minor bruises. Sure, his dad harped on and on about staying in peak condition for hunting, but ice was for things like broken ribs and sprains, not BRUISES.

Eimi rolled her eyes at his reluctance. “Sam, your knuckles are red and overheated, they’re gonna turn purple by tomorrow if you don’t ice. Trust me, I know.”

Sam took the ice, eyeing her. It was hard to deny that look of resignation in her eyes, the wry twist of her mouth.

He wanted to ask—

“So, you gonna tell me?”

— but she got there first.

“What?” He said. Maybe she was a hunter too, he thought, before he realized that was stupid. Apart from his dad, no one else brought up kids in the life. Hunting was about as family friendly as friendly fire.

“Come on Sam. You kicked the crap out of those guys and no offense but you’re kind of...”

Short. Androgynous. Thin. A freak. “...Wiry?”

She shrugged, grimacing apologetically. “Yeah.”

My dad is a major hardass bent on dragging my brother and me on his semi-suicidal, full-masochistic vengeance spree against weird shit like the thing that murdered my mom, he didn’t say. “I just watch a lot of Bruce Lee movies, I guess,” he deflected, looking away. If she asked the names of any, he was totally screwed. Dean watched shitty sci-fi movies as much as possible, and neither of them had much opportunity to see movies that weren’t in the death throes stage of reruns.

Eimi narrowed her eyes, looking at him intently. “So, you live around here?”

Sam fidgeted, shifting the melting ice against his hand. “No, not really. This is a cool song,” he added, just as the lyrics started to register.

 

_~i think guilt and innocence/_

_they are a matter of degree/_

_what might be justice to you/_

_might not be justice to me/_

_i went too far, i'm sorry/_

_i guess now i'm going home/_

_so let any amongst you cast the first stone~_

 

“Yeah, it’s not my favorite on this album, but I like all of her stuff, really. What are your favorites? Bands, I mean.”

Sam shrugged at her, feeling like the worst, most boring person ever. “My dad doesn’t really listen to anything made after 1979, so...”

“Does that mean you can’t?”

“Well, we move a lot for....” a secret quest to save people from things that bump in the night and mean we can never stay in one place long enough to breathe “...his work, so it’s a lot of hours in the car.”

Something surprisingly bitter flashed in Eimi’s returning smile. “Yeah, my mom and I bounce around a lot, too. She’s all about like, ‘letting the wind be our guide.’”

Sam took in the way her hands twisted together like she wanted to wring out a towel, or someone’s neck. “Like a hippie?” He asked.

“Minus the peace and love.” Her smile dropped completely, and the skin around her eyes tightened as she glared down at her hands. It was that same look she had in the library, the one that made Sam want to talk to her and ask what made her hold her anger so rigidly.

 

“...Level with me. It sucks, right? Moving around all the time, always being the new kid. Everyone looks at you like you’re a freak.” He couldn’t quite keep his voice level on the last word— not with remembering the way kids two schools ago wrote it on his locker in permanent marker, along with other less flattering words. His eyes grew hot.

 

Eimi sighed. “Sam, you’re the next Karate Kid. Of course you’re a freak.” She saw his wince and set her hand lightly over his, where he was holding the ice. Her fingers set his hands tingling, caught between freezing and thawing. She smiled. “So is, I don’t know, Jimmy Hendrix and... Picasso. So am I. All the coolest people are freaks.”

 

He raised his eyes from their joined hands to meet hers, closer now that he or she or both of them had started to lean forward. His heart rapped against his sternum, kicking him to DO something, anything, thank her. He had no idea how to articulate the feeling churning in his stomach, shame and gratitude roiling together. He had no clue what he was doing as he leaned forward, gradually, in slow increments in case she, well, if she didn’t want to, because let’s face it, she probably—

 

Eimi locked her eyes on his, breathed a warm sigh against his lips and closed the distance. All he could feel was her heat, her gentle pressure, the tentative slide of her hands against his, one of them rising to cup his cheek. Everything in him became still and heated, his entire being thrumming with the warmth and soft sweet pressure of her against him. He took a shaky breath in and shut his eyes, trying to meet her as she was meeting him, with a fumbling gentleness so careful it was almost intangible. He thought, inanely, that this must be what it felt like to hold a hummingbird against your heart, this delicate, frenetic energy that fed through them.

 

Time slowed to a syrupy sweet drag, tasting of artificial strawberry lipgloss. He grew dizzy. The ice bag on his hand was melting a wet patch on the knee of his jeans. One of her hands slid up his arm, cupped his shoulder, encountered the thick strap of the sports bra he usually disguised under layers of shirts—

 

He pulled back, hands flying up to his chest. The ice pack, mainly a bag of water by now, landed on the edge of the coffee table, broke and fell. The hummingbird feeling twisted into a sick, heavy weight under his sternum, “I’m sorry, it’s not— I didn’t mean—“

 

Eimi was looking at the puddle of water under the table with something dead and fatigued in the corners of her lips— Sam could see they were pressed tight, but still a deep living red, lipgloss smeared slightly against her cheek, “My mom’s gonna kill me.”

 

“Because we— do you mean, because I—“ If possible, Sam felt even more horrible now. He wasn’t sure if she meant she’d get in trouble for kissing Sam-the-boy, or if she meant she’d be thrown out for kissing that-freak-Samantha-who-thinks-she’s-a-he. Without the words to ask, to clarify, he took the coward’s way out.

 

Sliding off the couch into a kneel, he used the sleeve of his sweater to soak up some of the spill. “So your mom... she sounds strict.”

 

Eimi smiled like someone hijacked her brain, aimed a gun at her facial controls center and ordered her to lift the corners of her mouth. “She has a temper.” Taking the dishcloth from his hand— he forgot he was holding that, whoops— she crouched next to him and mopped up the spill roughly, hands clenched. “It’s... no big deal.”

 

It sounded kind of like a big deal. “My dad has a temper, too.” Every November, empty whiskey bottles on motel tables, Dean’s eyes dull as he listened to Dad snarling about fires and cribs and his perfect Mary bleeding out on the ceiling. The stomp of his boots and the slam of the door when he came back from a dead-end hunt, his look of impatient disgust whenever Sam wanted to stay at a school, meet a friend for a project, participate in a school play. Sam shook his head. “You don’t want to see him when he’s drinking.”

 

Eimi loosed one of her hands, inched it toward his wet sleeve slowly, not quite reaching. “My mom...Sometimes I think she’s not a good person. Sometimes I think I’m not a very good person.”

 

“You are.”

 

Behind them, Ani Difranco sang

_~I'm no heroine/_

_At least, not last time I checked/_

_I'm too easy to roll over/_

_I'm too easy to wreck~_

 

Eimi snorted, eyes fixed on the floor. “Don’t be so sure.”

 

Sam slid his hand until his cold fingers met the back of her hand. The ice bag she prepared for him just because he was bruised and she wanted to help lay empty between their knees. “I’ve seen enough bad...” He ducked his head, waited until her eyes lifted to meet his... “to know good when I see it.”

 

And finally, slow like the moon appearing through a gap in the clouds, she smiled. Her fingers curled around his, clasping gently above his bruises. He couldn’t remember ever having been touched so gently by a person he’d just met, touched for no other reason than because he wanted to and so did she. For a brief moment he let himself hope she might want to kiss again... at some point, not immediately, maybe if he saw her again tomorrow or if they could meet up again at the library...

 

_~I just sing/_

_What I wish I could say/_

_And hope somewhere/_

_Some woman hears my music/_

_And it helps her through her day~_

...But before he could ask her out, he needed to make sure she actually was interested in him as he was, and not just the him he was presenting as. Or, well, maybe more like—

 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eimi asked, giving his hand a squeeze.

 

"Um." He sucked in a breath and barrelled into his question. "So I know I look... and you said I was a boy... and I am, it's just. I mean, you probably might have guessed anyway but it's just that I--" Eimi stopped him with a hand to his lips. For a moment, he thought maybe she was just signalling that it was okay and she understood. But when he looked up, her eyes were fixed past his shoulder and her head was cocked, listening for something. Outside, a car started to pull into the driveway, and Eimi sprung up, just narrowly avoiding kneeing him in the face.

 

"What's--" he started to ask, but Eimi pressed the ice pack, dishcloth and his backpack into his hands as she pulled him to the entryway.

 

“My mom’s coming home, you have to stay quiet!” she hissed. Any words he might have said disappeared with the fever-bright look of panic in her eyes. He stood there among the coats as she dashed to grab his shoes and toss them in after him before shutting the door, meeting his eyes one last time through the angled slats he could just barely see through. “Don’t say a word. Please,” she whispered.

 

Sam stood there as the front door creaked open, hands full of backpack and wet plastic bag, lips still tingling slightly from his first kiss, in the dark and in a closet as her mother came home, and contemplated that God must have a bitch of a sense of humor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gals, pals and non binary pals I am SO SORRY it took so long to update. I’m currently in a reeeeally intensive language study program so like, this story has taken a back burner to surviving and studying. Also I am SO BAD at writing any kind of kissing scene so I waffled over that for like three weeks. Anyway happy holidays and I hope you like the update!
> 
> 1/12/18 EDIT to add in the "I've seen enough bad to know good when I see it" conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, disclaimers/ author notes:
> 
> A) I do not identify as trans or nonbinary. This is my attempt at imagining Sam's life if he were designated female at birth, and how his gender identity might evolve before and after his Stanford years. As such, if I make mistakes or say something wrong, please understand that I am learning and let me know how to do better.
> 
> B) As always, constructive comments and tips are totally welcome! 
> 
> C) I plan this work to be a couple chapters long, with some snapshots into incidents like Sam meeting Amy Pond, and his relationships with non-Jess love interests. Fair warning: I ship Sastiel so that might sneak in here at some point.
> 
> D) Sam Winchester in this series moves around on the gender spectrum, but he generally identifies as masculine or nonbinary, and is attracted more to girls than to boys. I see him as demisexual, panromantic. At Stanford, he identified as "queer as fuck" and used they/them pronouns, but he uses he/him more often in public because he's found it's easier to pass.
> 
> E) I personally think John Winchester is kind of a shit father, but I would prefer to write this family as confused/occasionally misguided or distant but ultimately caring. As such, certain parts ( the Dad saying the only thing he could teach a son that he couldn't teach a daughter is how to write his name in the snow) are stolen wholesale from my dad (who reportedly said this when I was born and he was asked if he minded having three girls).
> 
> F) I really wanted to have Sam watch Rent or read I am J with Ericka but alas, he's of an earlier generation. YA LGBT novels were pretty scarce before the 1990s/2000s, so I had Sam read the Outsiders and receive "zines" instead.


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